1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of Internet advertising. More specifically, the present invention relates to the optimization of links displayed on a web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
A domain name is the top level of an Internet web site's Uniform Resource Locator (URL). For example, the URL “www.yahoo.com/sports/mlb.html” has the domain name “yahoo.com.” Many companies prefer to have domain names that are easy to remember and/or are related to the goods and/or services that they provide. This is in part due to the fact that some users engage in direct navigation of web sites, wherein they type in generic names for the item, product, or service they are looking for prepended to a top level domain extension (e.g., “.com”) in hopes of finding relevant web pages, instead of going through a traditional search engine. For example, a user may try “digitalcameras.com” in the hopes of finding a digital camera before or in lieu of using a search engine to do so.
There are a large number of domain names that are owned by parties other than companies involved in the traditional sale of goods and services. For example, it is not uncommon for individuals or companies to purchase generic domain names, such as “miamirealestate.com” and simply “park” the domain name, waiting until someone approaches them to purchase the domain name.
One way for the individuals or companies controlling these generic domain names to add revenue is to engage in a program wherein advertising is placed on the web sites associated with these domain names, in the hopes of attracting users engaging in direct navigation. Oftentimes this involves a partnership with a search engine or directory. It is also beneficial to place advertiser sponsored keywords on the web page instead of or in addition to direct advertising, as users are more likely to click on keywords than plain advertising. The keywords may then link to subsequent web pages containing search results from the search engine (including paid listings), just as if the user had typed those keywords into the search engine.
Domain match technology may be used to automatically examine a particular domain name and extract relevant keywords related to it for placement on the web page. This may involve the segmenting of the domain name into constituent terms and using any of a variety of topologies to get back a set of related keywords.